NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday January 17
Welcome to the Thursday edition of NBA DFS Picks and Pivots, a fantasy basketball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for this slate of DFS action!
For those of you finding us for the first time, the concept behind NBA DFS Picks and Pivots is to give you a first look at the day’s NBA DFS slate, including our top picks, plays and pivots, using FantasyDraft pricing as a reference to help you build your best fantasy basketball line-up and win big.
Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate.
Another NBA DFS slate and another night where James Harden goes absolutely bananas for 80+ fantasy points. At what point does the DFS community just stop getting cute and we see him 100% owned in every contest? Even last night where Harden was 75% owned, all it meant was 25% of people were dead in the water – it also meant that winning scores pushed well over 400 fantasy points while the cash line in GPP’s hovered near 350 fantasy points on a high scoring Harden-led night.
Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate. The goal of this article is to dig through the slate, highlight our top plays and help you identify the best slate strategy across your NBA DFS line-ups.
As always, we will look to update our final lineup thoughts throughout the day on our twitter account @FantasyCPR so make sure to give us a follow for all the late breaking lineup news.
Without further ado, let’s get into today’s slate!
NBA DFS – Thursday Slate Breakdown and a FREE ROLL!
Before we jump into tonight’s NBA DFS slate – we have another Picks and Pivots Free Roll from our friends at FantasyDraft who put $50 up for grabs with tickets to Friday’s NBA DFS slate – get in now before it fills and take advantage of this awesome bankroll building opportunity!
Looking at this five game NBA DFS slate, one of the first things that jumps out to me is the lack of injury news – it feels like we have all the news already which is always odd, but there is something fishy about the lack of line for the Suns-Raptors. As far as I can tell, there is no injury news but the Raptors are on the tail end of a B2B after playing the Celtics tonight so could this be a spot where they rest a Kyle Lowry or Kawhi Leonard?
It seems like Vegas, at least at 5AM EST as I write this, is trying to tell us that – if we get Raptors stars on the bench against the Suns, this is going to make things VERY interesting and open up a ton of value. Let’s park that one to the side and attack the rest of the slate but let’s be very conscious of that news because it could change the slate.
UPDATE – As of 10:15 AM EST – Both Kawhi and Lowry have been ruled OUT for tonight. We have not yet had a game this season where BOTH players have missed and there is very little sample size of what the Raptors look like with them both off the floor (less than 50-60 minutes).
My take on the Raptors – Ibaka/Siakam get nice boosts and are priced fairly and it will be hard to avoid Fred Van Vleet in this spot against the Suns. Will need to see so slides into Kawhi’s spot but it would make sense for guys like Delon wright and/or Matrick McCaw to get boosts and possibly Norman Powell as well. Basically if you play for the Raptors tonight, you are in the player pool.
The biggest decision at first glance on this slate is how we want to attack Russell Westbrook ($21.1K) and the Thunder at home versus the Lakers. This game has a 226 total and by far the fastest projected pace where these two teams see massive pace boosts – the only issue being a 10 point spread and blowout concerns.
Westbrook just showed us in a similar pace up spot against the Hawks that a 60+ fantasy point night is a near lock (65 to be exact which puts him at 3.1x value) and he put up 60 the last time the Thunder faced the Lakers.
On FantasyDraft specifically, I see no reason to fade him – he is the only player over $20K and the pricing is soft enough where you can lock him in and you still have $11.2K per player for the rest of your build – more than enough to build around in my opinion. The question is, where do you go next?
NBA DFS – Do we Game Stack?
From a pure game environment perspective, building around a 226 total and the fastest paced game on the slate seems like an easy solution and even more so if you are afraid of the blowout and want to run your Westbrook exposure back with the Lakers guys in the hopes this game stays close.
The pricing is such where building this game stack can be done without too much concern and it all starts, in my mind with Russell Westbrook and Paul George ($18K). The last time these teams faced, Westbrook and PG13 combined for just under 115 fantasy points and on a short(er) slate like this, raw points are a priority and it is hard to see another duo on this slate with more raw point floor/ceiling in a pace up game.
Steven Adams and Jerami Grant are both priced fairly, at $13K and $10K respectively so I think they are fine for cash games or if you find yourself needing a last man in and these are the price points you find yourself in – otherwise, I think there are better GPP upside plays.
In similar price points to Adams/Grant, you will find basically all the Lakers and this is where I believe you build the majority of your core with a Lakers starting unit that is priced for profit.
Lonzo Ball ($12.5K), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ($9K), Brandon Ingram ($12.7K) and Kyle Kuzma ($13.4K) give you a core four build of plays all locked into 30-35 minutes in a pace up spot.
When these teams met back on January 2nd in LA, the Lakers were also missing LeBron James and were leading by 4 heading into the 4th quarter before OKC outscored them by 11 in the final frame to win by 7 – if you are stacking this game up, you are hoping for a similarly close games.
As my man Joe Metz points out in his NBA DFS Game Stacks article today – this is the top game to build around and I think making it a part of your core is the ideal start to attacking tonight.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays and Values:
The one piece of injury news we already have that could/should open up some value is with Wendell Carter Jr. who is out tonight against the Denver Nuggets with a thumb injury.
We do not yet have confirmation on how the Bulls will fill the void left by Carter and with a big Denver Nuggets front line on the other side of this game. it stands to reason that multiple plays will likely get a crack at outperforming their price points.
Bobby Portis ($9.1K) was the direct sub in for Carter in the Bulls last game against the Lakers so it is possible that he gets the first crack at the Center position tonight. Jabari Parker ($6.9K) may be the better point per dollar option as he has similar risk/upside for a far cheaper price, having re-entered the rotation with 16-18 MPG the last two games with 23 and 30 fantasy points in those limited minutes.
In those last two games, with Carter off the court, Parker has played 32 minutes, sporting a team high 27% usage rate and putting up 1.55 FP/M. For under $7K he was already paying off his price tag and now has a path to even more minutes which makes him one of the best value plays on the entire slate.
The one “issue” with this game is I could see the Nuggets just throttling Chicago here and Vegas seems to support that with a slate high 12 point spread so if we want, we can attack the blowout angle a bit here.
Shaq Harrison ($6.4K) is a player who is “game script proof” in the sense that he gets run in normal game scripts but would also see a huge boost if this game does blow out. In the last two games with Carter off the court, Harrison has a 26% usage rate and 1 FP/M in 30 minutes of court time. Against the Lakers, Harrison checked in near the end of the first quarter and played the entirety of the second quarter, finishing the game with 10 FGA and 4 3PA while also getting to the line 7 times.
If we get confirmation that Robin Lopez or Cristiano Felicio will get the start – you could play the punt game with them both being minimum priced as with Jokic, Plumlee and Millsap on the other side of this game, I don’t see how they avoid giving these bodies some run.
To me, Parker is the safe punt, and I could argue that Harrison is a nice last man in, safe from nearly whatever game script you want to play out. The other Bulls bigs are complete dice rolls but because of the opposition, it is tough not to see a path where they get run.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – this is a sample lineup only meant to be illustrative and should not be used as a plug and play lineup.
More from FanSided
- Caesars and PointsBet Promo Codes: $1,750 Bonus For ANY World Cup or MLB Game!
- Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
- NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
- 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
- Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse
G: Russell Westbrook
G: Lonzo Ball
F/C: Paul George
F/C: Kyle Kuzma
F/C: Brandon Ingram
UTIL: Jabari Parker
UTIL: Shaq Harrison
Slate Overview: On this slate I think the priority needs to be a way to build around Westbrook in the best pure game environment on the board. This is a national TV game, and I absolutely think that matters to guys like Westbrook and if you want to “protect” against the blowout, then simply stack it up and hope the game stays close.
The pricing is soft enough, especially on the Lakers side, that you can do this with relative ease and now with Kawhi AND Lowry ruled out, there is far too much value to get cute and try and fade Westbrook tonight.
Good luck tonight all – get in that FREE ROLL and let’s have another great night.
Next. NBA DFS Game Stacks to Attack - January 17. dark
Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest NBA DFs news and analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.